Women found living on Lakeside pot farm

LAKESIDE  Sheriff’s deputies found two women, ages 83 and 61, living in tents amid more than 400 marijuana plants, a hash oil extraction lab and greenhouses in Lakeside on Wednesday.

The women were detained and questioned but not arrested, sheriff’s Sgt. Craig Johnson said in a news release Friday.

A special community policing unit of deputies started an investigation into the property on Old Barona Road near Wildcat Canyon Road.

Johnson said deputies learned that a house on the property burned in the October 2003 Cedar fire and was never rebuilt, so the two women were living in tents. However, he said, there were five large, newly built sheds being used for growing marijuana. Additional pot was being grown in greenhouses.